Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Albino Sweet n' Sour "Chicken" from the Mystical Albino Forest

No offense to any albinos out there. Or the forests of any albinos.

But seriously: have you ever SEEN a food more albinic (yes, I made that word up) than this here sweet-n-sour "chicken" coating?

You know how every once in a while you hit a recipe that leaves you standing longer than normal in front of the stove/oven, peering quizzically at the food that's cooking, and muttering to yourself "Well, maybe it just looks strange because it's only 1/2-way done in the cooking process"? And so you continue to stare at it and stare at and stare at it because secretly you want to be there to witness the EXACT MOMENT that it suddenly blossoms from "weird blob-like ugliness" into "beautiful Julian-Casablancas-esque swan"? And it never does, so then you try to convince yourself that, despite the fact that it looks like someone threw up into a pot, that's actually what it SHOULD look like? And then you convince yourself that surely it's edible, and you serve it out to yourself and actually spend a few minutes eating it and convincing yourself that it's not QUITE so terrible as you thought until you just can't fool yourself any longer and you just about gag on the very last bite that sends you pitching it all in the garbage?

This was that recipe.

Allegedly, it was supposed to coat sweet-n-sour chicken in a sweet-n-sour-chicken-coating-ish-type way. Clearly, it did not.

I unfortunately don't have a link TO the recipe to warn you, but suffice it to say, it was obscure enough that you probably won't accidentally stumble across it and try to use it.

It looked innocent enough, but somehow after dipping and then baking the "chicken" (which was essentially homemade seitan, coated with this recipe) the result was a weird rubbery biscuit-type breading that I suspect, were I to try it, might've actually BOUNCED, and which was weirdly impenetrable to tearing and/or fork-piercings. In fact, it might've offered decent-quality material for a) bullet-proof vests, b) helmets, or c) elbow & knee-pads.

And I tried. I really did try to eat these. As you can see from the picture:

The sweet-n-sour SAUCE itself wasn't too bad (though nothing special). But seriously: it was like chewing on somebody encased in scuba-diving gear.

So finally I gave up.

And pitched it.

All the while mourning the waste and wanting to punch the recipe-author in the left testicle.

Ultimately, I ended up having to eat shitty indian-food from a plastic bag.

So ends the tale of the Albino Sweet n' Sour "Chicken" from the Mystical Albino Forest.

Moral of the story: Always be skeptical of unendorsed internet-recipes.